


Six String

by SongAboutExiles



Category: Lost Souls - Poppy Z. Brite
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, M/M, No seriously a mess, POV First Person, Self-Hatred, Steve is a mess, don't let that stop you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 03:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: Teenaged Steve teaches himself to play the guitar, and hates everything about himself except Ghost.





	Six String

I make myself bleed every day. I hold this wood-and-steel-string nightmare on my lap, and I force myself to play until my flesh busts open, slicking and smoothing my path. My hands don't take these shapes naturally. My fingers aren't really all that nimble, and for all that my hands are big, they ache all the time as I try and make them stretch to the chords and fingering. But I will do this. I will *make* my alcohol-numbed, fucking primitive brain wrap around these ideas. I will *make* my ugly hands do something beautiful.

I will do this for Ghost.

I don't pretend to understand. I was raised so full of hate and bullshit that every time I find myself thinking things about him //how would he feel?how soft is that sweet glowing white skin? what does his mouth taste like, when he says such pretty, magical things?// I find an excuse to beat someone up, start some kinda stupid shit. Get drunk. Call him ugly names in my head. Faggot, homo, pussyboy. The last resort of a playground bully like me. Never out loud, though.

Never out loud. It would hurt him. It would make him cry. I don't think it would make him leave me, though.  
Yeah, Ann likes to play armchair-goddamned-shrink on me all the time. She knows what it'll get her, but she does it anyway. Because if there's nothing to hit and not enough booze, fucking her raw works pretty good too. No, I'm not real proud of that, thanks for asking.

I will never make him dirty. For more reasons than I can count. From my old man taking it out of my hide to it making me a queer to the fact that I'd take this guitar string and wrap it round my neck and hang myself from the goddamned water tower if he ever wore a bruise I gave him. If he ever turned those magic eyes on me and they were full of tears I put there. No. I'll just give him all the tenderness that's in me. All the sweetness.I'll give him my hugs and I'll give him my trust. I'll pour it all out into him, and I won't worry that there's none left for Ann, or for anyone else.

If I've even got a scrap of fucking human decency, it's because he put it in me.

So. I sit here in my dim, filthy room, practicing, giving more of myself to this art than I ever have to anything, ever. Not school, for damn sure, and not girlfriends, and not cars. This is my gift to him. There has to be something beautiful in these hands, and if I can just get it to come out, who knows? Who knows how it will sound?

I wonder if he'd sing with me, silvery sweet tongue and quiet, bone-deep need.

Would he make something beautiful with me? Would he stand beside me in front of God and everybody and let them see that we let ourselves blend together, messy lines of purity and pain, grafted together like skin on an open wound? Would he be proud?

Fuck. I need a fucking drink. And a shower. I've been sitting here stewing in sweat and blood and the metal-stink of the strings, thinking thoughts that make me hard. That make me ashamed. That make me *sick*.

Ghost takes baths. With fucking *bubbles*. And a motherfucking rubber *ducky*.

And yeah, I *have* looked. And just like the preacher-man would say, I have coveted. I have had impure thoughts. I have *wanted*. And I may be going to Hell, fucking fedexed, but not him. Not for all his juju and all his queerness. Those bad ole devils can't touch him, and neither can I.

Something's different. My fingers are still moving, but they feel surer for all the blood. My hands have stopped cramping up. And...God. I. I'm making music. It's *real*. I've never even heard this before, and I feel like someone poked a hole in me, and the notes are all falling out. This...this is better than fucking. This is better than being shitfaced. This is better than being high. 

Shut up and just let me fly.

I'm making something beautiful. Only thing is, I want to share it. So fucking bad. I want to give Ghost his gift.

I'm not the least bit fucking surprised when a soft little sound makes me look up, fingers getting all clumsy again. Of course Ghost is standing in my door. Of course he's got tears in his eyes. So do I, fuck it *all*. I scrub at them, pissed that he caught me so damn exposed. 

"Steve." He says my name so gentle, almost like one of his dumbass little spells. He closes the door quiet behind him, and then he's taking the guitar out of my lap and slithering right on in. If he can feel my hard cock, he doesn't say anything, even when it gets worse. Even when he lifts one of my hands and kisses my fucking boo boos, then puts it up against his cheek.

God. He's so soft. Softer than a girl. And he smells better, too. He burrows his face into my sweaty, rank neck and breathes like he likes it, thin arms and legs wrapping around me as he just *holds* me.

Like he knows that giving birth is a hard thing.

And I hold him, and cry and want and I'm so fucking scared right now. But when he pulls back and tilts his head and looks into me and says, "Make music with me?" I think my heart is going to pound right out of my chest and I have to make myself nod. He grins at me, bright like the sun, and lays his head on my shoulder, all content, rubbing his face against me and singing me a low, sweet song.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an olllld, ancient fic I decided to post because honestly, I think it's some of my best work.


End file.
